


Who are you

by SaintSaens



Series: Circumnavigo [5]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (we don't - we just come back over and over and ), Angst, BAMF Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman Friendship, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Whump, Canon-Typical Violence, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Gen, No beta we die like Quyhn, Personal Growth, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Quyhn is going for revenge, as a result, booker's every possible warning you can think of, kind of?, let's be real for a sec, only the first chapter/prelude is post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:49:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26992435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintSaens/pseuds/SaintSaens
Summary: Quỳnh was drifting, in her mind, at peace, when the first light comes striking in.What she sees awakes her past from her drowned heart, a reminder of what is out there and what  isn't (her, she isn't, she's down here and drowning). She doesn't see much. Just a man, hanging. Pathetic, when she thinks about it.Unfortunately there is more for her to see, and she holds those glimpses in a choking grip. Because no one should dare to hurt her Andromache like he did.[Or : my take on why Quỳnh goes straight to Booker when she gets out of the sea, why she  is the way she is when she meets him in the movie and what happens afterwards, with Booker and the team!]
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Circumnavigo [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1959520
Comments: 22
Kudos: 123





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is yet a new work... in progress too (I'm sorry?).  
> It's been in my brain for a while, and really is the first story I had thought about at the end of my watching the movie. So here it is finally. 
> 
> Don't be scared by the prologue, which is sort of completely different from the rest of the work?  
> This piece focuses on Quỳnh's side of things and her reasoning behind her actions as we see her in the movie (and as I've glimpsed from the comic...although it's not canon compliant on that end!). This first chapter is a bit of teasing with the team before starting properly!

"You're pathetic"

Booker bites his lips. He could feel Quỳnh smiling behind him, prowling around him. Darkness was closing in, knot chaffing his skin as he moved his head back and forth. Suddenly he feels himself dropping. 

\- - - -

She left him hanging. It's a matter of seconds before he starts trashing. And the circle begins. 

\- - - -

How dare you

How dare you

How dare you

It's the only thing Sebastien can hear as he awakes anew and dies again. Only a few seconds to catch the words, where his cervicals lock back into place before giving up again, where his brain struggles to reach for a blood which doesn't come, where his lungs want to scream for an oxygen which doesn't drip down to them. Where he blinks into the light, or the night, and the only thing he can see is a figure sitting leisurely in front of him. 

How dare you, Quỳnh keeps on saying. 

The water swirls crystal clear, when she drinks.

\- - - -

Nile sends a message. 

Then another. 

She doesn't want to let worry eat at her, but her mind wanders, to a sleep without nightmares. She feels her breath shudder, thinking back to the past few nights, where she's woken up because of the dark. Not because of a scream, not because of phantom pain behind her ribs. Because of the silence. And the dark it came with. 

She thinks the others might have noticed something was up. She doesn't like to ponder on it, but she'd become accustomed, in the past months, to Quỳnh dying during her sleep. It was difficult at first, then it became a fixture in her nights, one she would wait for. It's been a week, and she still wakes up from the absence of all of it. 

Her minds can't help working on what it means. For Quỳnh. For the others. 

And to what it might have done to Booker.

They had called each other the first night. And Nile had said, she had said, Booker hadn't contested, that they would wait, before telling the others. In case they were wrong, in case Quỳnh wasn't dead. She couldn't be dead. It couldn't be. So they would wait. Wait and see, what the dreams would bring. 

They didn't bring anything. 

And Booker still wasn't answering. 

\- - - -

It's been almost five days now, that these dreams have stopped. 

Booker doesn't reply to her anymore. She hasn't told anyone.

Nile feels a shift, in the world. Quỳnh is gone. Booker is gone too, in his own way. 

She should feel free.  
She even started dreaming her own dreams again, full of city streets, bars, cars. No more cold waters. 

It's what breaks her.

\- - - -

"We need to talk." She says to the others, when she catches them going down the stairs to the garden of their current house. 

Nicky looks at her, and the phone clenched in her hand, and doesn't even question her demand. He comes to her, puts a hand on her shoulder. "Is everything alright?" 

His tone is blank, void of any emotions, and Nile knows it's his way of handling the rising anxiety. "It's about Quỳnh. And Booker too." 

Andy stills, her face becoming marble at the names. "Speak, Nile" 

Nile breathes shakily, and she explains everything. 

\- - - -

She doesn't know if it's because she's told them, about the dreams, the lack of screams, but it marks for her the beginning of new things while she sleeps, overwhelmed by people speaking French, in crowded streets, dirty with road traffic. 

It's raining, hitting her hard.

She wakes up screaming. 

\- - - - 

"I don't know, I don't know" she keeps on repeating. Joe is kneeling in front of her, and Nicky is by her side, but her head is in her hands and she's muffling her cries "I need him. I need him here. Now. I don't know."

Andy is here, standing, somehow distant and lost too. She is drifting, with Quỳnh gone. She can only breathe, waiting for someone to say something.

"I need to know he's alright." Nile breaks out at last.

It's not so much a decision as a defeat. They will go seek him, wherever he is hiding. "Paris" Nile says, flashes of the Eiffel tower looming over a closely cut-up grass field "he's in Paris." 

"Of course that fucker would be" Joe whispers.

So she isn't the only one aware of how much Booker hates that place. How relieving.

\- - - -

She tries to sleep, but it's restless. She shakes, snapshots of uneven pavement, dirty métros and people roaming the streets, dark and cold. The worst is the voices, screeching unrelentingly in that garble language she's heard Booker use, every now and then. 

She wonders how deep madness can go, when in the reflection of a métro's window, Quỳnh is looking back at her with a kind smile, light flashing dangerously in her serene eyes. 

Nile wakes up with a gasp. She doesn't have time to wonder why the woman was there, wearing a red dress, before she's running to the toilets. 

"We are leaving in thirty minutes" Nicky says from the doorway. "Joe just got the train tickets. We'll be in Gare du Nord by 11 am. Then we can check if Copley's managed to track down his place." He doesn't comment on her puking her guts out. Or on the fact that she's begged them to go and check on a man they still are working on forgiving. He trusts her. She hopes he isn't mistaken.

She looks back at him, sees Andy hovering behind him. She nods, tiredly. "Belleville. Line 2" she says simply, a vague memory of her dream haunting her eyelids. "I think..." she trails off, shaking herself up as she comes to a stand.

She doesn't notice, the worried glance at her back, and the doubt lingering in her friends' eyes. 

\- - - 

Nile definitely stops trying to sleep again when she sees Booker hanging in her dream. 

It's the silence, the worst thing. Because there are no words anymore, not even a scream. 

And she sees him hanging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed those quick glimpses on what to expect ? 
> 
> I swear, next chapter is the real thing starting properly. Quỳnh's POV and everything. I hope I'll do her justice somehow. I've got a few chapters planned, but there will be at least 5 of them BEFORE we get to interact fully with the team and we pick up where the prologue has stopped. I did say I would focus on Quỳnh. But also, I can't let Booker off so there is that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not dead! This fic is alive! 
> 
> Pinky promise.

The waters are dark and cold and the only light down that deep and wide sleep of hers is dulled. It has become Quỳnh's world, and she is used to it, although she remembers despising it a long while ago for a reason she's lost.

And so, she feels comfort in the sluggish sea.

She is lulled by a peculiar rhythm, oscillating between shivering currents that leave her feeling alive and warm ones that stuff her lungs heavily, leaving her drowsy.

This is what she knew, of her reality there. It was what she was accustomed to.

She could have gone on and on and on.

If only, it weren't for these flashes.

\- - -

The first time Quỳnh sees it, it startles madness from her limbs.

She has lost count of how long she's been down there, how many time she went away fighting that rusty cell of hers. She has now entered a new stage of enlightenment. She has lost count, she is numb and yet she fights with every breath every time the water is churned down her throat She is a furnace, eating up metal. Water is something she is fed and she spits it out with a blinding faith she can't control, instincts always taking over, no matter how much she doesn't want to react, how much it hurts, no matter what.

She's in that spiraling mindset, where the waters aren't dark anymore, loneliness isn't a curse, she is no one, has no name, has no limits to her body and she takes a savage joy at breathing in the salted tears around her, at hitting her confines and hurting everywhere she can.

It's her whole world. She is alive, she burns with it and she's alright. She might be drifting, she certainly feels like she's soaring, even if she knows she is not moving. Not anymore at least.

In the end, it doesn't really matter after some time.

It's her mind that is freed from all physical considerations. She's reached a new level of understanding. She's come to enjoy it.

And so she's just there, breathing in water, trashing against iron and closing her eyes in the dark. She's at peace, after deaths and deaths of uncontrolled pain. She welcomes it. It's almost a new heartbeat.

She's at peace.

And then there is light, striking and feral.

A flash.

It shakes her to her core, questions her cycle, of life and death, of being and breathing. It's a sharp reminder of what is, out there, up away from the seas and the drowsy currents that had lulled her in an unknowable moment.

There is a flash. It’s a call back.

Quỳnh is breathless.

She has lost her freedom.

She has blinked into existence, witnessing again the outside world.

It hurts.

Her soul and her thoughts. Her lungs. Her throat.

Quỳnh doesn't appreciate it. It's worst than the cycle of going away and coming back hurting she had going, alone in peace, when she sees what there is out of the sea, just waiting for her to reach it.

Quỳnh starts throwing herself against her cage, a metal she previously had only scratched, for comfort, for herself, for the feeling of iron turning to sand beneath her hand. She starts screaming, reborn in her rage and the knowledge that there is a world out there, and it took her away from her own little world down there.

And it doesn’t come to her. It doesn't free her.

She doesn't care about what is there, in the flash of The Outside she gets. She doesn't care, she only trashes and screams, more pained and devastated and enraged than she had been for a long time.

When the flash is gone, she quiets down. Even if she keeps on dying, her thoughts do not leave anymore that imprinted vision. She quiets down but her mind keeps on turning, thinking back to everything she saw, everything she noticed.

When the second flash comes, she is ready. She watches, intention undivided.

\- - -

Strangely, she isn't awed, or shocked by what she sees.

Quỳnh is so attuned to her reality of dull tones, of coldness, and of vagueness, that when the flash comes she only notices the sunlight, that leaves her eyes burning bright, and the snow, small and white, falling slowly down, but burning tenfold into her retinas.

She can't say how she knows it is snow at first, her mind focused on the vision, and with only the knowledge of her world, how she knows it is just another form of water, but it quiets her. She settles, knowing that there is water in that flash of life and that she isn't alone.

The water is still there. It’s not far.

Quỳnh quiets down.

The snow, and the light shining on it, it unlocks her mind and suddenly and slowly, everything else comes trickling back in, uncurling from the deep sleep it had been pushed in. For her survival. For her safety.

She doesn't understand yet why she is seeing these things, but she knows she hates it. The snow, the light, the sun bright. Deep down, the pain in her throat is nothing compared to the wrenching burn that the vignettes of life she witnesses from then on bring her.

With every new flash, she starts coming back from the never-ending circle of breathing, drowning, and dying. She starts questioning what is around her, and most importantly, what isn't. She feels the distant touch of a hand, on her cheek, and she screams until she dislocates her jaw, leaving it hanging.

There's no joy when these flashes come, that's her only certainty.

She hates it.

\- - - -

The flashes are constant now . Almost every death of hers is a new glimpse, a new vision of what lives. She has got over the light, and the snow. She has now understood enough to watch the flashes unfold. The phantom itch of someone else by her side is a new companion she carries there now.

Quỳnh hates what she sees.

And she feels cheated, like something is missing.

Now, at least, she knows why she sees these things. And she can only spit and curse the devil that devised those doings.

Because it's a sad sight, and she wants to sneer that the glimpses of the world she gets to see now are revolving around an old white man hanging at the end of a rope over and over again. She doesn't know where, she doesn't know why, she almost doesn't care. What matters is that now she has to suffer through those sad times with that pathetic man who has crapped himself and is dying again and again and again.

She knows he isn't the only one hanging, there are others, by his sides, dressed just like him. He is the only one waking though, so that must make him special.

Quỳnh sees the other bodies, turning blue beside him, and she thinks about an army, marching against an enemy and getting caught and punished. She has seen it enough times that she is not even surprised.

Once, she almost acknowledges his intelligence when he manages to stop trashing, every time he comes back. It reminds her of herself.

She manages better than he ever could. What a shame.

But then she sees men walking in front of his hanging spot, casting fearful glances at him and his companions. Quỳnh feels a laugh bubbling, and she chokes between the air and the water, it's been a while since she had been unhinged enough to start laughing in her coffin. She laughs, out of disbelief, because the men walking by are dressed just like the men hanging.

It's an execution, a demonstration.

That pitiful man who comes back and wakes up, he's a traitor to his peers. She doesn't know why, she really couldn't give a damn. He must have betrayed them, one way or another, to end up there. End up there, and keep on dying, over and over again.

He is pathetic, it's the only thing she can think of. Pathetic and sad, and she screams because of the fact that it is the only thing she gets to see, out of the whole world she dimly remembers exist.

He is pathetic.

She doesn't yet make sense of why she is seeing him, but the reminder he stands for, for what she's lost and what still lives, out of her reach. It's enough to make her hate him. As he abandons himself to yet another sad death by hanging.

She feels a wide smile stretch on her lips, a scream coming up from her guts, with water slipping in and madness boiling under her skin. He dies another time, and she dies with him, different paths but same ending.

She isn't alone anymore.

He must know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> I hope the second chapter didn't spook you away (I know it's very very different from the "preface"/1st chapter. But it's a building up thing - I'm sorry I'm a mess). 
> 
> Next chapters will be coming quickly!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! Update! I swear this fic is all written down. I just need to find the time to publish it and stick to it :D

He doesn't acknowledge her. 

She screams. She keeps on screaming. Calling to him, whoever he is. 

And still, there is no reckoning on his side of things. 

It's been a few enough times now, that she has had a glimpse into that man's world. Enough, that she's noticed a change in light, like the change in her currents' warmth, but quicker. Day. Night. An unwelcome reminder. A sting, into her own reality. That there is something missing down there. 

She hisses. 

He doesn't do anything. He keeps on dying. He doesn't acknowledge her. 

That might be the worst.

She has noticed that, really, none of the other men hanging are waking up, just like this one is. She figures that's why he is so intent on keeping calm, on not trashing around, when she sees him take a new breath and hears his heart beat loud. He must be very special indeed, to wake up when the others keep on sleeping. 

She can't wait for him to acknowledge her. One way or another. 

By the time the man falls from his rope, Quỳnh has come around her own reality enough time to know a few things. First, the cold is not welcoming, wherever they are. Two, the men by his sides have lost limbs and they are still not moving. While that old man keeps on struggling. Just like she is. Three, he still hasn't done anything, to tell her that he knows she sees him. 

What if he didn't.

What if he couldn't. 

What if she was alone, truly and terrifyingly alone. 

She can't make sense of her mind breaking down to show her this, not when she had been so soothingly happy before he came to her like this. It's been so long since she's been away from there, she doesn't believe she could have imagined it all. 

Even less an old man like him. It doesn't feel right. If she had to think someone up, it wouldn't be that.

She wonders if she's cursed. Cursed to see people going on about their lives, up in the air, when she is down there. 

Quỳnh drowns, lips tight, mind racing against those lights that keep on coming and going in his world, while her own cycles feel so much slower. 

\- - - - 

She doesn't scream now. It's useless, or so it feels.

She sees the man walking, stumbling around what she knows to be trees. She doesn't doubt it. Those huge things, so much bigger than the ones she has somewhere in her mind, almost as dark as some corners of her own reality. Her fingers tingle when she sees them, as if they have touched them before, and want to touch them again. 

She sees him falling flat on his front, unmoving for a moment, before he takes a breath like she gulps down water. And he goes back up. 

Once, this happens when someone is moving the man around. A thief. The thought, whatever it means, comes through quickly. Quỳnh feels her muscles coiling, ready as if that danger was close to her. She only hits the walls around her. 

The thief, trembling, screams as the man snaps awake. It startles Quỳnh to silence, the echoing brittleness of the sound ringing in her mind. It's been a while since she's heard such a harsh sound. Even when the army was walking past the pillory, the sounds had been muffled. Maybe by fear, maybe by awe. But never so loud. Never so strong. Never so right. 

Quỳnh notices then how muffled her own world sounds. 

The thief is terrified, that she recognizes, and he raises an axe, but the man who is awake again rolls away from the weapon and kicks the thief's legs out from under him, letting him fall stupidly on his side. Her old man doesn't seem to think twice, he jumps on the other one and taking his head in his hand, crashes it down over and over again. His hands are bright red when he stops. 

It's been a while since Quỳnh has seen something so sluggishly fascinating, and so soaked up in a color that doesn't exist in her world. 

The man breathes harshly and Quỳnh only watches, waiting, to see the other one coming up again. She struggles against her own restraints, wanting to shake that new companion of hers into running away, while he still can. Before the thief comes up again. Maybe he is one of them too. 

But the man only breathes, keening between clenched teeth, eyes locked on his fingertips. He is pale, and she feels despair, down her guts, despair that isn't hers. She doesn't understand why the man would be so desperate. She is angered instead. He should run, he should leave, he should ensure his survival. Not just tear up on some lost blood. 

She doesn't understand why he does just that, why he doesn't run. Until she realizes that the thief won't come awake again. Oh. No rush then. 

The man leaves the body behind, only taking what had been stolen from him first. He stumbles on again, muttering to himself in words that grates Quỳnh's ears. Latin, she thinks. Or something like it. 

Quỳnh concludes now, that whatever makes the man wake up when he is down, when he sleeps, when the light goes away from his eyes, might well be the same thing that makes her come back too. The both of them trashing and fighting against something that spits them out and forces them back into their worlds, while it takes the others. 

Others who never come back. Is that why she sees him? Because he is like her and she is like him? 

So she considers again the man that walks in her mind. She considers him, and his reality, and hers, and what it must mean, if no one else comes back from everything they go through, like the both of them do. 

Quỳnh drifts as he walks, wondering if he too, feels the loneliness growing when that knowledge comes kicking in. The despair stays too. She wants to think it's not hers, but she wonders.

She wonders if she should thank him or hate him. Thank him for reminding her of everything that is. When she feels lost wherever she is. Lost and lonely. Or maybe she should hate him. Because before him, ignorant of what was, she had been fulfilled, with only her own reality and nothing bothering her sleep. 

For the first time in a long time, she feels something burning deep in her heart. It's not madness. It's more concrete. 

Envy, it is. 

\- - - 

The man walks, for times and times. Quỳnh has become accustomed to the flashes of his life. He still doesn't acknowledge her, but at this point, what does it matter. It's strange for her, every new glimpse a revelation. Of a world she used to know, a world she had forgotten almost. There are the muddy roads when she thinks don't walk there, you'll fall, the fire in the dead of the cold, don't do it now, you'll attract animals you idiot, the thirst. The thirst shakes her. That need for water. It disturbs her, because she's so full of the sea around her, so used to it, she doesn't think she could have gone on without it, until the man showed her the world as is. When he feels the thirst, and she wakes, she strangles herself between mouthful of saltiness. There's the lingering need for water and the instinctual fight not to drink any. But she still drowns. She still drowns. And he is still thirsty. 

She might start to hate him a bit more because of it. 

\- - -

At some point, Quỳnh feels how the man's spirit shifts. He becomes swifter, he takes more care walking through the forest, avoiding the roads. Being unnoticed. 

He waits, listens as the people speak. She knows he understands whatever they are saying because she can see his frowns and his face shifting at some words. She vaguely gathers a sound here and there, but her mind can't fathom what it relies on, not yet.

He is scared, he is suspicious, but his heart betrays him, Quỳnh can hear it stirring, quickening. It's a familiar feeling, tingling down her limbs and making her dizzy. 

She understands, when the man happens upon a remote farm. And he stands there in silence and awe. 

Home. 

A woman comes out, looking harassed by the hours and ready to snarl at whoever dared to come bother her at this early hour. The snarl turns to a sharp scream. Then silence. Then tears. 

It's home. 

It's love. 

Quỳnh's lips move, a touch she had forgotten sparkling wonder on her lips. A touch that isn't there, a breath that doesn't mingle with hers. A life that doesn't link to hers anymore. 

Quỳnh's heart breaks a little bit more. 

  
\- - -

Quỳnh forgets herself. It's the matter of a moment, but when she sees the woman, Andromache, her Andromache, standing in the man's home, living, she breathes in. It's sharp, it's quick, it runs down her throat and makes her lungs sting, but she doesn't scream. 

For the first time in a long time, she is only silent when she goes. She doesn't need any sounds to be uttered. 

She remembers herself.  
She remembers this woman. 

She remembers a name. One word, her world.

Andromache 

And her heart can't take it.

\- - - - -

"Who is she?" Quỳnh hears him ask.

There are no replies. It's dark. 

\- - - - 

She's shaking as she comes up again. She's shaking, hands scratching the metal in front of her. She's shaking, because God it was Andromache. Andromache. 

Quỳnh distantly feels her memories stirring up, feels her body thrums, the distant and yet never ending presence that had followed her always, a background warmth in her darkest hours. It had a name, and a face again. It was that woman. Her woman. Again. 

Andromache.

She doesn't think anymore, there's only one thing her mind is dedicated to: Andromache. 

She fights her restraints. She will see Andromache again. She has to. There's no choice.

They have to. 

Andromache. 

That's all she believes in. 

She can't wait to see her again. She screams. Make the sleep comes faster. And the flashes of life quicker. 

\- - - -

She isn't there. 

Andromache. 

Quỳnh drinks everything in, eyes wide open around the man's life, the one she has learned answers to Sébastien, but she cannot see Andromache. 

The flash isn't as short, it's not as quick. It draws on, slowly. She can't think why, but she doesn't like it. 

Sébastien is there, with his wife, even with some kids. He looks grimly happy. 

But Quỳnh cannot see Andromache. 

Where is Andromache?

The entire day of that man's life, she has glimpses of. More than any other times before. But no Andromache. 

Where is she? 

Quỳnh screams. 

(She wants to think it's her, that make Sébastien startle in his own world.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this new chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

Quỳnh rages. She pushes at her coffin, because damn that man who refuses to show her Andromache. He refuses to go to her. He stays with his family. 

Because she knows Andromache is here. She feels her, and then she catches, in his periphery, Andromache, sometimes Nicolo or Yusuf, those old friends, still there, and it's relief in Quỳnh's heart as she sees them. But Sébastien, he doesn't notice them. 

Just like he didn't acknowledge her, he doesn't acknowledge them. 

But they are there. 

They are there and he doesn't talk to them. He doesn't talk to her. 

He doesn't follow her. 

Andromache. 

Damn that man, Quỳnh screams. Damn his family. 

There is only Andromache in her dreams, when she screams. It's bitter, filled with tears.

\- - - 

It's a new prayer for her lips now. She curses him and his family. A litany of plaintive tones, of teared up thoughts. 

Andromache is alive. Andromache isn't far. 

It's worse than having her locked in the back of her mind, a presence known but not seen. 

Andromache is alive but she can't see her really. She can't hear her. She can't appreciate her. 

Because Sébastien, bloody Sébastien, wants to enjoy his fucked-up nice life with his wife. 

Quỳnh screams, cursing and cursing and cursing. 

Every time she sees him smile, every time his wife laughs, she thinks of Andromache and how she could be witnessing her like this. If he weren't so selfish. 

She curses him, every new flash coming in, she curses him and his family. 

At some point, even Andromache leaves. Nicolo sometimes shows up, Yusuf too. But it's rare. It's never for long and they're always welcomed with a dark glare.

Quỳnh bares her teeth. And she goes on cursing him.

Through the seasons, through the years, as short as they are, as great as they feel to her, she curses him. 

She sees his wife's hair turn whiter, she sees his children grow up. 

She sees him never changing, looking doomed but happy. 

And she curses him.

\- - - 

She is almost viciously cheerful when his wife goes away. 

Then his children, although it does awake something bitter in her right away. 

When he is left with no one but her, she laughs. She laughs and she rages, because now there's isn't a lot he can do. 

He is alone. He has no one but her, and her Andromache, and Yusuf, and Nicolo, and it feels to Quỳnh like a tainted victory. But she will take it.

He is alone. She is too. But he has her family around him now, as reluctantly as it is for him. 

She will take it. 

\- - - 

"Who is she?" He asks again, and this time, Quỳnh can see, the pain that slashes through her Andromache's eyes, and the way her hand tightens on her horse's reins and the way her spine straightens. 

Andromache doesn't answer. 

Quỳnh decides she won't stop cursing him. She fights her iron coffin and she doesn't stop cursing him. 

\- - - 

"Quỳnh" 

It's soft words, leaving the man's lips as he looks at himself in the mirror. He looks into his own eyes, as if he were looking for something else, somewhere deep inside his mind. 

Quỳnh. 

It brings Quỳnh back to herself. She doesn't dare open her mouth when she hears the word. 

It's her name. 

Her name. 

Herself. 

He knows her. She is there. 

She isn't just a witness. She's there, with them. 

Behind him, Quỳnh feels more than she hears Andromache's intake of breath. 

Does she knows she is alive then? 

There is hope in her heart, swelling the used-up organ. Could she find her? Could Quyh find her now? 

It doesn't really matter.

Quỳnh laughs, and drowns, but she laughs. 

Andromache knows she is still there in this world somewhere. 

Quỳnh never needed anything else. 

\- - - -

Quỳnh dares to hope, her thoughts drifting as the days go by and her family, her friends stay with this boring old man. 

Maybe they will meet again, she thinks. Sébastien, he can tell them about her. They can exchange words. They can talk to her, through him. 

Quỳnh's mind stumbles along every thought, going quicker than they can come, almost. She smiles, a stretch to her lips that had taken her aback because it's been so long since she had properly smiled.

He can tell them about her. Quỳnh hopes. 

But as always, Sébastien disappoints. 

She should be used to it. 

He asks them about her, again, but they look torn, and in pain. Sébastien is a coward, Quỳnh knows that. He is pathetic, he stops before he can go far.

And Andromache has hope in her eyes, but it's distorted. Like she's tried too many times and will loose herself if she goes once step further. 

Quỳnh wants to throttle Sébastien. Keep talking, she thinks. Keep talking. Tell them everything. 

But Sébastien only asks about her once more. 

The silence that greets his words is worse than anything she could have heard. 

You're pathetic, she thinks. 

You're useless. 

\- - - -

Quỳnh has to give it to him. He tries to help Andromache. 

Her Andromache has new habits, new ways of moving around. She's still there somewhere but something seems lost, or faded. It's worst when she hears Quỳnh's name being uttered. 

Sébastien and her, at least, now that he is with them all, stay together. 

Quỳnh has to give it to him. 

It settles her a bit, to see Andromache. She stops cursing. 

Sébastien seems to breathe more easily. It's strange, but it makes her smile too for a while. 

He can't ignore her as much as he would like then. It's fine by her if she has a lever to use against him, when the need arises. 

She only hopes they would try to reach out to her. 

But he is after all, a selfish bastard. 

\- - - 

Slowly, ever so slowly, it crumbles to ruins. Quỳnh watches and there is nothing she can do, as Booker loses hope and drowns too. 

She watches. She knows. 

And her waters are cold.

Speak to her, Quỳnh thinks. 

Protect her, she screams. 

Every time they go, every time he sighs, every time they fight. 

Every time Andromache enters first and he is last. She screams herself to death. 

Every single time.

Protect her, protect her, protect her.

It's what keeps her going, when she receives those glimpses from him. 

Protect her, protect her, protect her. 

That's the only thing you can do, she thinks, you selfish bastard. 

Her waters are cold. 

\- - - -

It's nothing now, not even sand, what is left from his life and her future. Quỳnh can only watch. But she knows something's not right.

When Booker meets Copley and hangs his head, Quỳnh knows. 

When Booker goes back to the team, and observes them all, Quỳnh knows. 

When Booker doesn't drink that night. When Booker calls Copley instead. 

Quỳnh knows. 

She doesn't need to hear that man's words. 

She doesn't need to see it happening. 

She knows. Her hands scratch at metal. Her teeth are set, her eyes blaze. She knows. 

And she thinks. 

How dare you. 

She screams.

How dare you. 

\- - - - -

She startles, when there is a flash that comes, bright and burning her pupils down. It's so much harsher than anything else right now, it reminds her of seeing Booker for the first time. 

But no, it's not that asshole. It's a girl. It's nothing more than a girl, gurgling out at her, eyes wide open. 

Oh. 

A new one then. Oh charming. Just what they needed. 

Quỳnh screams. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally going somewhere! Cheers! My brain is all over the place but I hope I managed to make sense in this hell.  
> Next chapter will be the last one before Quỳnh comes back (I'm not sure if I should divide the work into pre-Quỳnh-comes-back and post-Quỳnh-comes-back...but it's there! It's there! We will see afterwards how we manage!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last (quick) chapter for Quỳnh's pre-canon take! I can't wait to have her interract properly with the team AND Booker :D

  
How dare you 

Every time he comes back to her in a snap of lights, and the girl comes too, but whatever, Quỳnh screams and she trashes, she won't let him get away with it. 

She has sworn to herself he would regret it. 

Betraying Andromache. Her Andromache. What the fuck was the man thinking. 

He will know. He must. 

How dare you, she thinks. 

He will understand, that she's coming to get him. She will be the one ending him.

The girl is scared deep down, she might be scared of Quỳnh too but Quỳnh doesn't have time. The girl is lost and she goes with the flow. But she doesn't see what Quỳnh saw. And she can't help when Booker tugs her along in his little game. 

The girl is useless for now with Booker. Protect Andromache. Quỳnh thinks. Protect her. Do better. You can't do worse than Booker. Protect her. 

I'll kill him, that hopeless bastard. Protect her. 

I'm coming, Quỳnh realizes as she screams. I'm coming. 

I'll end it, him, everything.

I'm coming. 

And she keeps on trashing. 

  
\- - - 

She doesn't see much of that day, her flashes divided between Booker and that new girl. She doesn't see much but she sees enough. 

Andromache dying, hurt by Booker of all people. 

How dare you, she thinks as he kneels. 

She grits her teeth. And she starts trashing again. 

How dare you. I'm coming for you. 

I'm the one who will end you. 

She sees their tears. She screams.

You're pathetic, Sébastien. How dare you.

\- - - - 

She has worked against the metal of her cage since she's witnessed the last glimpses from the world up there. She pushes and pushes. Unrelenting. She will get out. She will kill him. That's all she thinks. I'm coming. 

But she knows something is wrong when the flashes show her two different places. Again.

It's Nile, in a car, drowsily watching out the scenery as Andy drives, a hand to her side. Andromache. 

Quỳnh's heart flies. Andromache is still there. She's hurt, but she's still there. Andromache. Her Andromache. Andromache. 

But it's too quick and Nile's attention doesn't seem to stick. Andromache fades away. 

And it's Booker, alone by that damned river. Still alive. Not dead. And he is there. 

Quỳnh feels cheated. She snarls.

You didn't deserve to be near her, Quỳnh thinks. The metal starts chafing. You didn't deserve to be near her, you didn't deserve the last hundred year you spent by her. You don't deserve her. 

You should have died. You should drown. 

I should be there she thinks. She smiles. We should swap. It would do you good, dying. Just what you wanted. 

I'll end you, she thinks. The metal keeps chafing. 

How dare you. 

My Andromache. 

Look at what you've done. She is hurt. You hurt her. You're alive. I can't see her. How dare you. 

I'll end you. 

\- - - - 

The divide in the flashes sticks. 

It snaps something in Quỳnh she didn't know was still holding. 

She screams. Because Booker goes on living, and now Nile is with Andromache, but Booker is away, and the small flashes she receives are divided between someone who is away from her Andromache and someone who is near. 

Quỳnh can't take it. 

I'm coming. I'll end you. Just to be near Andromache again, whole. Undivided. 

You won't be there to mess with her again. 

\- - - -

It's not an explosion and it's not a new flash when Quỳnh startles for the very last time. 

She's using up the metal, unrelenting, thinking I'm coming and I'm coming and I'll end you and How dare you, when the metal gives. 

She pushes and pushes and suddenly she doesn't. It's weightless against her strength. Her arms extend in front of her and she is lost. 

She is free. 

She slowly leaves her iron cage. She moves her limbs, feel her hair in waves around her head, she tries to swim. She's rusty, it almost makes her laugh. She's useless and her muscles are weak. But she's alive and she's swimming. 

She doesn't care about the flashes. She knows. Where he is. How to reach for him, wherever she is. 

She has everything memorized. Everything comes to her now that she can act. 

She smiles, showing off her teeth. She swims.

She is coming after him. 

I'm going to meet you Booker, she thinks. And you'll regret it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of the pre/during-canon of this fic! 
> 
> A few notes:   
> 1) Thank you thank you thank you, I can't say it enough, to everyone who's left a comment on this work. I mostly don't reply because I'm that dumb and shy but know that every single comment was a new beat to my little heart <3\. 
> 
> 2) As previously stated, I'm dumb. So I only realised later on that I will need to rename this work in order to publish the next part. This work will be called **Who are you** as soon as I start publishing the next part (because it focuses and leads to Quỳnh "meeting" Booker + Quỳnh relearning who she is from snapshots of Booker's life) and the next part will be "How dare you"(because Quỳnh really wants to know, Booker. How dare you do that to her Andromache? How?). Confusing much? Welcome to my life darlings. 
> 
>   
> 3) I'm dumb again. So I only realised later on that there were pre-canon and post-canon tags... I have no idea how you all ended up finding this work but nonetheless mistake erased and now everything's tagged properly-ish (??).  
>   
> See you for the next part! Picking up where the prelude to this fic left us all hanging...the team coming to rescue Booker!  
> 


End file.
